Chemical Weapons

Plaid Cymru MPs stand ready to discuss a proper peace plan in Westminster and would welcome any attempt by the UK Government to facilitate a diplomatic solution that involved all the major powers. The United Kingdom and the international community must step up. The responsibility lies on the UK Government to forge a diplomatic solution to this problem that ensures that a plan for peace prevails.

The truth is, as peaceful as we all want to be, Dostoyevski might be onto something when he says: right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time. Because sometimes enough is enough. And morality snaps. But can we ever stomach Trump McFly being the champion of the innocent? Can Trump lead Syria to the happy ending that takes the future of Syria back to the joys of it's past?

Sudan's absolute impunity for ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the western region of Darfur has entered its thirteenth year. This year, the regime escalated its slaughter of civilians to the point of apparently gassing its own people.

In a recent press release, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) referred to Tuesday's attack upon its experts and UN inspectors in Syria as a "blatant attempt to prevent the facts being brought to light." ...

Syria has been, by and large, relegated from the front page to the 'World News' sections of quality papers. Politicians no longer mention the fate of that nation and its occupants - and, if they can summon up the courage, they do so in mundane statements, of the sort which bloodlessly assert how truly awful it all is.

It's easy to say you want a world without nuclear weapons. Nearly everyone does: even David Cameron. It's like saying there should be no global poverty: the hard part is taking action to do something about it.

Last week I visited the Domiz refugee camp for the third time in six months and saw many children at school and play. Once again, I was struck by their cheeriness and resilience. I wanted to find some of the children I met in June but the camp has mushroomed since then from 50,000 to 75,000 so it would have been difficult.

The destruction of Syrian chemical weapons (CW) has started. In a breakthrough moment in Iran-US relations, the two Presidents talked on the phone and the foreign ministers sat down to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. Though the connection has received little comment in the western news media, these two welcome developments are deeply linked and close to inter-dependent.

An apparently inadvertent remark by Secretary of State John Kerry, who mused that Washington might change course if Syria handed over its chemical weapons stockpile, now appears to have changed everything.